


She spun away and said to him "No featherbed for me!"

by anrol



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Acorn Hall, Alternate POV, Book 3: A Storm of Swords, Canon Compliant, F/M, One-Shot, POV Gendry Waters, Romance, Spoilers for Book 3 - A Storm of Swords, gendry POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28732260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anrol/pseuds/anrol
Summary: From this angle, with all the dirt and blood washed away, she’s something beautiful. An unsettling thought, that was.“Riverrun. You look different now. Like a proper little girl.”“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” This close, he could see the dent in her bottom lip where she’d bite it when she was thinking too hard. He leaned in, getting a whiff of her hair. Flowery and sweet. “You even smell nice for a change.”-The wrestle at Acorn Hall, through the eyes of Gendry-
Relationships: Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70





	She spun away and said to him "No featherbed for me!"

**Author's Note:**

> All characters, pretty much all the dialogue, action, plot belong to George RR. Martin, first of his name...

Greenbeard had returned to the hall. “No word of the lightning lord, nohow,” he sat, resigned, and a servant girl filled a cup of wine for him.

“It’s never good sense to fret over _him_.”

“Lady Smallwood will be with us by suppertime. When she’s done with the little squirrel, she’ll tell us what she’s heard.”

Harwin seemed to perk up at that. Then he was catching Gendry’s eye and looking at him funny. Instinctively, Gendry glowered back, but the man only chuckled and shook his head.

True to their word, Lady Smallwood returned with Arya, just as supper was being served.

Arya was... not herself.

They had done something with her hair; what used to be a tangled mess fell in soft curls at her neck. She’d been scrubbed until every last inch of Harrenhal and the road was gone from her. There was barely a hint of Arry, Weasel or Nan left in her appearance. Strangest of all, she was wearing a green dress adorned with little acorns. Out of the Bolton rags, she was even smaller than he had thought. Was this how she had looked, when she’d lived a lord’s daughter’s life?  
There was a defiant gleam in her eyes; she looked like she was both twitching to get out of the dress and daring anyone to say anything.

So, naturally, he took one look at her and burst into the sort of laughter that hurts your stomach. He was choking on his wine until Harwin came along and gave him a thwack alongside his ear.

Once he’d recovered, they dug into their meal. Mutton, mushrooms, brown bread, pease pudding, and baked apples with yellow cheese… As they ate, Anguy told roguish tales of Dorne, Lady Smallwood ensured they were all eating their fill, Tom broke into song a few times and Arya was shifting in her seat or pulling at her sleeve at every other moment. Afterwards, he couldn’t remember being so truly full before.

“Any word of the lightning lord?” Greenbeard asked in a low voice. Gendry had noticed that he’d been itching to say something all the while they’d been eating.

“Word?” Lady Smallwood smiled. “They were here not a fortnight past. Them and a dozen more, driving sheep. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Thoros gave me three as thanks. You've eaten one tonight.”

They went on speaking of sheep and Tom’s conquests and visiting Northmen looking for Jaime Lannister. That was when Arya spoke for the first time in a while, squirming in her seat and not just because of that dress. “What northmen was it, who came looking for the kingslayer?”

“They did not give their names, child, but they wore black, with the badge of the white sun on their breast.”

“Did they say how Lannister came to escape?” Lemoncloak asked.

“They did. Not that I believe a word of it. They claimed that Lady Catelyn set him free.” Arya was chewing on her lip at that, and her brow furrowed in the way it did when she was trying to work something out.

Tom snapped a string in his shock. “Go on with you. That’s madness.”

“I thought the same,” said Lady Smallwood.

Harwin seemed to remember who was present and turned to Arya. “Such talk is not for your ears milady.”

“No, I want to hear,” she said desperately.

“Go on with you, skinny squirrel. Be a good little lady and go play in the yard while we talk, now.” Gendry could’ve laughed at that. He doubted Arya had been a good little lady in her life. What would the man say if he found out that this “good little lady” had once started a bloodbath with some soup? But Greenbeard’s words had made her stalk out of the room.

 _Is she going to try to run away again?_ It was a stupid thought. _No, she wouldn’t leave me._ And that was another.

He followed her out of the room. Mayhaps they could talk to one another as friends did, speak of more than who was chasing them and how moss grows. Strange it was, to be beside Arya without looking behind his back for goldcloaks or wolves.

“Arya?” He called after her. “Lady Smallwood said there’s a smithy. Want to have a look?”

“If you want.”

“This Thoros,” He said, as Arya walked beside him.“Is he the same Thoros who lived in the castle at King’s Landing? A red priest, fat, with a shaved head?”

“I think so.”

“He won’t remember me, but he used to come to our forge.”

They found the Smallwood forge easily. Though all was in order – the tools hung neatly on the wall and all the basic equipment were at hand; he could see from the bluntness of the blades and the empty, dusty state of the forge that there hadn’t been a smith here in some time. Gendry lit a candle, leaving it on the anvil. He took down a pair of tongs and examined them.

“My master always scolded him about his flaming swords. It was no way to treat good steel, he’d say, but this Thoros never used good steel. He’d just dip some cheap sword in wildfire and set it alight. It was only an alchemist’s trick, my master said, but it scared the horses and some of the greener knights.”

Arya screwed up her face. “He isn’t very priestly is he?”

“No,” he admitted. “Master Mott said Thoros could outdrink even King Robert. They were pease in a pod, he told me, both gluttons and sots.” Master Mott might say all sorts about kings and lords but he’d meet them with the same courtesy when they came to the shop, and he’d have words or a hit on the head for Gendry if he didn’t do the same.

“You shouldn’t call the king a sot.” She seemed offended. The King had been old mates with her father, he remembered. A brown strand of her hair had fallen, brushing her cheek.

He made to pinch her face with the forge’s tongs but she swatted them away, wrinkling her nose. That expression always made her look like one of the stray kittens that were everywhere in King’s Landing, they’d make that same face when they were scratched under their chins.

“I was talking about Thoros. He liked feasts and tourneys, that was why King Robert was so fond of him. And this Thoros was brave. When the walls of Pyke crashed down, he was the first through the breach. He fought with one of his flaming swords, setting ironmen afire with every slash.”

“I wish I had a flaming sword.” _I bet you do._  
“It’s only a trick, I told you. The wildfire ruins the steel. My master sold Thoros a new sword after every tourney. Every time they would have a fight about the price.” He hung the tongs back up and took down the heavy hammer, weighing the balance in his hands. Not for the first time, he longed to be back in the shop in King’s Landing. "Master Mott said it was time I made my first longsword. He gave me a sweet piece of steel, and I knew just how I wanted to shape the blade. Only Yoren came and took me away for the Night’s Watch.”

There was a smithy here, and a decent one at that. The Brotherhood aren’t like the Lannisters or Starks. To be without banners and to have a chance to use a sword for himself... and they were fighting for people like him… But that was the dream of every other idiot Flea Bottom boy, wasn’t it? To be like Ser Duncan. He was more likely to wind up at the end of a noose... surely he had more sense than that.

“You can still make swords if you want,” said Arya. “You can make them for my brother Robb when we get to Riverrun.”

Gendry almost dropped the hammer, turning to look at her. Riverrun. He had almost forgotten. She looked the part now – with the dress and the soft, wispy brown hair. There’s a delicate wildness to her features that he hadn’t seen before. From this angle, with all the dirt and blood washed away, she’s something beautiful. An unsettling thought, that was.

“Riverrun. You look different now. Like a proper little girl.”

“I look like an oak tree, with all these stupid acorns.”

“Nice, though. A nice oak tree.” This close, he could see the dent in her bottom lip where she’d bite it when she was thinking too hard. He leaned in, getting a whiff of her hair. Flowery and sweet. “You even smell nice for a change.”

“You don’t. You stink.” Arya shoved him back against the anvil and made to run, but Gendry caught her arm. Somewhere in his thick bullish skull, there was a lad who had kept his head down and laboured away in a forge and knew better than to lay his filthy blacksmith hands on a lady, that lad was telling him that the very hand that had grabbed her could get chopped off for this.

She stuck a foot between his legs and he found himself tripping, so he stupidly pulled her down with him. She fell, half on top of him, her leg curled near his. He reached out to her again, his hand around her smaller wrist, but she pulled away with her lip quirking upwards. With that cheeky grin, she’s a little squirrel with a nut, like Greenbeard had said.

He reached for her. He tried to hold her still but each time she’d wriggle free and punch him. She was ever the little thing, no matter how fierce she could be; each punch might as well have been a kiss. _A kiss may have been more proper._  
Gendry laughed as she kept at it, and that maddened her. It was a heady feeling, knowing he could get under her skin. He gripped both her wrists with one hand and tickled her until she slammed her knee between his legs and broke free of his grip. Soon they got up off the floor, both of them breathless.

He’d ripped her sleeve. Her mussed hair and smudged face was his work too.

“I bet I don’t look so nice now.”

Gendry cursed the red gods, tree gods and fire gods, remembering he would have to face the Brotherhood back in the hall with her looking like she’d been rolling around in the forge. But she still made for a nice oak tree.

**Author's Note:**

> Any constructive criticism is welcome! Please leave kudos if you liked it. I always love reading canon scenes or full books/episodes/movies from alternate perspectives and there really isn't enough ASOIAF canon-compliant fanfic so-


End file.
